*Photo from the Los Angeles Times*
Philadelphia leads series 2-0
Bring on all the firepower in the batter's box. JT Realmuto drove in 3 runs, Kyle Schwarber homered twice, and the Philadelphia Phillies trounced the Arizona Diamondbacks with a 10-0 victory on Tuesday night in Philadelphia.
Make that 4 straight wins for the Phillies, who have been putting on quite a show this postseason and are two wins away from clinching the NL pennant and returning to the World Series after going and falling short last year. What's been behind it? Scary good hitting.
The Phillies joined the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays as the only teams to hit at least 3 home runs in a game in 4 straight games. They have outhomered their opponents 19-4 this postseason, the largest margin in a single postseason. 16 of those came in their last 5 games. Through the 8 games they've played, they also have a .575 slugging percentage.
Phillies shortstop Trea Turner said of the success with the long ball that "When you can get the homer ball from four, five, six different people in your lineup, that's a big deal. It's game-changing; those are game-changing moments."
Turner started the scoring in the first inning with a solo home run to make it 1-0 Phillies. Schwarber hit a solo home run in the 3rd inning to make it 2-0, and he made it 3-0 in the 6th with another solo home run. Later in the inning, Realmuto hit a two run double to left center field, making it a 5-0 Phillies lead.
Marsh scored Realmuto with an RBI double to make it a 6-0 game. In the 7th inning, Alec Bohm hit a double that scored Schwarber and Bryce Harper to make it 8-0. Bohm then scored on an RBI single from Realmuto to make it 9-0. Nick Castellanos capped off the scoring surge with an RBI single that scored Bryson Stott.
Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola said after the game that "We like our chances, for sure. We’ve got to keep putting in the work and competing. We’re going to try our best to do that until the end, right? But we’ve still got a little ways to go. We’ve got a good Arizona team at their home park in a couple days. We’ve got to take it step by step."
Nola was the starter for the Phillies, striking out 7 hitters while allowing 3 hits in 6 shutout innings. Jeff Hoffman pitched a scoreless 7th inning, Matt Strahm worked the 8th, and Orion Kerkering pitched the 9th to get the win.
Merrill Kelly got the start for the D-Backs, allowing 4 runs in 5 2/3 innings. Joe Mantiply got the final out of the 6th after being tagged for 3 runs. Ryne Nelson allowed 3 more in 2/3 of an inning. Slade Cecconi and Andrew Saalfrank had scoreless appearances.
Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said that "Everybody is talking about coming into this environment, and I don't care. We have to play better baseball. Everybody has to be better. You can start with the manager and then trickle all the way down through the entire team. We've got to play Diamondback baseball. What we watched out there was not anything that we have done for a long period of time. So we've got to regroup. We have to regroup the troops and find a way to get it done."
The series shifts to Arizona for at least games 3 and 4, with game 3 on Thursday afternoon. Ranger Suarez takes the mound for the Phillies as they look to take a 3-0 series lead. The D-Backs look to get on the board in the series with Brandon Pfaadt starting.
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